Xu Chen

Professor Kingsley

ENGL 101_22

28 October 2008

Art is the essential vitality of an artist, and his or her artwork derived from the distressing journey of his or her life. The artwork conveys unspeakable expressions of moral prejudices and concerns. Pan YuLiang, a nineteenth century Chinese female artist, is renowned for her nude paintings and self-portraits. Her artworks highlight the influence of conservative values on the gender issues. Nudity were an issue first raised in the 1920s, however, it still is an unsettled issue in China today. In Pan’s painting, she combines Chinese elements with western techniques in her paintings. Then Pan sets out her passion to portrait nudity in her paintings. Pan chooses nudity as the center of her artwork because Pan has a deeper understanding of female body. Her experience at brothel made her feel ashamed of her body, but she was overjoyed to discover the human body was the most beautiful art in the world. Pan finds that art is the best way to express her thoughts. However, Pan’s paintings are impossible for conservative Chinese to adapt. Her paintings inform the message that it is a time to change people’s views on the roles and the status of woman in society.

Pan YuLiang, a "depraved" Chinese female artist of her lifetime, was born in Anhui Province, China in 1895. At very young age, both of her parents died and her uncle became her guidance. When she was fourteen, her uncle deceived her and sold her to a brothel. This sudden change of her life has shaped Pan’s thoughts about the world and she reflects her life experiences on her paintings. In the article, A Lonely Legacy of Pan YuLiang, Huang quoted in the article, “When she was a prostitute, her body was others’ tool; there is no soul…..But in the artistic world, the body is respected artwork. It’s not hard to understand her complicated and deep feelings for human body” (China.org.cn 2). Pan discoveries that her nude painting to be most effective way to show the awareness of gender issues. She uses art to illustrate her sorrow past and her paintings express the brutality of Chinese society had mistreated women. In1916, a local custom officer, named Pan ZanHua rescued her from the brothel and married her. Through, Pan ZanHua’s help Pan was able to attend art school and study aboard in Paris. With the help of Pan ZanHua, Pan was able to display her artistic talent and her enthusiasm for a social reform.

During the nineteenth century, China was heavily under the influence of western technology, literatures, and politics. Under this influence many Chinese politicians and scholars urged to modernize China. Despite of these changes, woman’s status and values were not part of “modernize China” reforms. According to Rit Nosotro views on the role women in China during the nineteenth century. Nosostro states, “there was a prominent male domination in the country of China. Women were deprived of all rights and were present mainly to serve men” (Nosotro 1). It’s clear that tradition images of woman as material asset is still placed on the woman. Women are restricted in any part of social activities. However, this obstacle did not stop Pan to express her concerns of the gender issue. Thus, Pan finds that nudity is the best way to express the social inequality and woman’s suffering. Nevertheless, Pan’s artworks during the time were very offended to Chinese traditional values and briefs. Her artworks would eventually drive her to exile from her motherland due to her first art exhibition in China. A man quoted during Pan’s art exhibition, “This is a prostitute carol to whoremonger” (China.org.cn 2). Pan’s past experience as a prostitute burdens her ability being an artist, in which many Chinese thought her artworks are fill with sexually images. After this incident, Pan’s artworks are no longer welcomed in the Chinese society. She left China with pain and sadness.

In the novel, The Painter from Shanghai, Jennifer Cody Epstein narrates the dramatic behaviors of people towards Pan’s paintings. When Pan YuLiang was detected sketching bodies in a public bath house. Pan noted that, “the angry women shoved her around, pulled her hair, tore her works into pieces, and only felt satisfied when she was pushed into the hot bath water” (Epstein 207). The nude painting had scared the mind of the conservative values. Any exposure of a women’s body would provoke unrest outrage to public. Chinese women had a unique experience on their way to feminism. Chinese politicians and scholars believe Chinese society in “Confucian terms were a patriarchal society with strict rules of conduct” (Li paragraph 8). The Ideal feminism women were based on the underlying principles of Confucius’ teaching of “three obedience and four virtues” (Li paragraph 9). The Confucius teaching is the essential elements of women’s purities, innocents, and values. However, Chinese men had abused the power that was granted to them and treat women like material asset. Through Pan’s nude painting, she revel the insight suffering of women’s life in Chinese society. Pan YuLiang expresses herself, “A concubine is nothing more than the storage room” (Epstein 174). She highlights the distress of Chinese women in a men dominated society, which re-enforces women as slave, inferior being, and prostitutes.

Pan’s artwork expresses her feeling as a woman, her sorrow life at brothel and her love for her country. She works hard to purse her passion for art, even at cost of her own happiness. For Example of Pan’s artwork would be Portrait of Pan Yuliang (1940) and Self Portrait (1963), was painted during her exile for her native country. Pan painted Portrait of Pan Yuliang, when China was invaded by Japanese troops. Pan was dressed in a black Chinese silk qi pao and sitting in a western-style leather chair. Next to her is the table where she lean her arm, and colorful flowers were displayed in a sky-blue Chinese vase. Pan painted Self Portrait express her struggles and desperations yearning to return to China. Pan was wearing a tradition Chinese cloth with the button unbutton leaning on the table and next to displayed alcohols and cigarettes. Both of Pan’s artworks review a sense of western style and Chinese method. The significant about the portraits are the element it conveys. However, in most Chinese people’s view of her nude painting are consider a sexual context. In Pan’s painting of nude portraits, she did not carry any sexually description. She empowers women to suppress their social status, express her frustration, and unfair treatments in the past. It’s why she prefers to paint women nudes. Her portraits bear an expression for social righteousness and concerns.

A depraved artist of her lifetime emerge a century later become a symbol of women’s salvation in China today. Pan YuLiang was the only women at the time, which had the courage’s and the sprits to show the mistreatment of traditional values and briefs had on women. Through her complicated life, Pan reveals in her artworks, the distressing journey of a women that were mistreated by male dominated society. Pan’s passion for art, for her country, and her belief has cost her own happiness. That had earned her the praise from many Westerner, but none from her native. Still in China today, Chinese people still founded difficulty to accept nude model for painting. Even at her death she only wishes for her artworks to be reorganized in her motherland. Her artworks are a symbol of women’s rights and social status in Chinese society. Pan was a courageous woman who followed her truth no matter what the consequences. Her strength and perseverance is an inspiration to us all.

Work cited

China.org.cn. "A Lonely Legacy of Pan YuLiang." China. 5 Sept. 2007. 25 Oct. 2008 <http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/223285.htm>.

Nosotro, Rit. "Women in China." Hyperhistory. 15 June 2007. 25 Oct. 2008 <http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t3w24womenchinap2kk.htm>.

Epstein, Jennifer Cody. The Painter from Shanghai. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated, 2008.

Yuan, Liun. "Ethics of Care and Concept of Jen:A Reply to Chenyang Li." Muse.jhu. 17 Jan. 2002. 25 Oct. 2008 <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hypatia/v017/17.1yuan.pdf>.